I call shenanigans on this one for the moment. I can't imagine any "game changing missiles" that Syria can send to Hezbollah that Hezbollah doesn't already have. Hezbollah already has the M-600 missiles from Syria, which share the same range as the SCUD-D with half the forward, but is much more manageable for a group like Hezbollah.

EDIT: The only missiles that I can think described as "game changing" are the P-800 Yakhont anti-ship missiles that Syria recently received.

Twitter is abuzz with news that there was (a) a large explosion in northern Damascus (Mount Qasyoon), (b) a military research center was hit, (c) claims that it was an Israeli missile attack. State TV is apparently making the last two claims.

Take all of that as if it were coming from CNN. Who I expect will be reading it off of Twitter live on the air sometime soon.

Second thought: while we argue over intervention, Israel is intervening.Third thought: Israel is also making a fairly significant counter-argument to all the grumbling about the strength of Syrian air defenses.

Second thought: while we argue over intervention, Israel is intervening.Third thought: Israel is also making a fairly significant counter-argument to all the grumbling about the strength of Syrian air defenses.

I still can't believe that it was mere M-600's that led to this strike. The Israeli's must have had some concrete intelligence about something happening or going to soon happen at the sites in order to warrant a strike of this magnitude. I'm wondering about chemical or biological weapons perhaps.

I still can't believe that it was mere M-600's that led to this strike. The Israeli's must have had some concrete intelligence about something happening or going to soon happen at the sites in order to warrant a strike of this magnitude. I'm wondering about chemical or biological weapons perhaps.

Or just they figured that it was a good opportunity to get rid of some weapons that would otherwise end up aimed at them. No one can prove that there was nothing nasty there--at best foreign intelligence can say "well, we didn't know of anything" and no one is going to believe the Syrians if they deny it. The Israeli government doesn't have to say anything.

Or just they figured that it was a good opportunity to get rid of some weapons that would otherwise end up aimed at them. No one can prove that there was nothing nasty there--at best foreign intelligence can say "well, we didn't know of anything" and no one is going to believe the Syrians if they deny it. The Israeli government doesn't have to say anything.

I find this is a common trait in the middle east. Not matter what happens, most will inevitably deny the facts and make up their own convenient truth, no matter the circumstances.

Syria's rebel Free Syrian Army reacted cautiously on Sunday to the Israeli air strikes, saying their country was already under attack daily by regime war planes.

"Of course the Free Syrian Army and any Syrian is bothered that their country is being bombed, but Syria is being bombed every day by (President) Bashar al-Assad, and by Israel," FSA media and political coordinator Louay Meqdad told.

According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association by the name Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social work.

According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted to set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran.

What took Israeli leaders by surprise was the way the Islamic movements began to surge after the Iranian revolution, after armed resistance to Israel sprang up in southern Lebanon vis-à-vis the Hezbollah, backed by Iran, these sources said.

"Nothing provides the energy for imitation as much as success," commented one administration expert.

A further factor of Hamas' growth was the fact the PLO moved its base of operations to Beirut in the '80s, leaving the Islamic organization to grow in influence in the Occupied Territories "as the court of last resort," he said.

When the intifada began, Israeli leadership was surprised when Islamic groups began to surge in membership and strength. Hamas immediately grew in numbers and violence. The group had always embraced the doctrine of armed struggle, but the doctrine had not been practiced and Islamic groups had not been subjected to suppression the way groups like Fatah had been, according to U.S. government officials.

Quote:

In the end, as Hamas set up a very comprehensive counterintelligence system, many collaborators with Israel were weeded out and shot. Violent acts of terrorism became the central tenet, and Hamas, unlike the PLO, was unwilling to compromise in any way with Israel, refusing to acquiesce in its very existence.

But even then, some in Israel saw some benefits to be had in trying to continue to give Hamas support: "The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official who asked not to be named.

"Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said.

All of which disgusts some former U.S. intelligence officials.

"The thing wrong with so many Israeli operations is that they try to be too sexy," said former CIA official Vincent Cannestraro.

According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism."

"The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer."

"They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it," he said.

Aid to Hamas may have looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to help smooth the waters," he said. "An operation like that gives weight to President George Bush's remark about there being a crisis in education.

“Israel will miss the Assads,” a veteran intelligence source told The London Times. In reference to keeping peace in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights he added: “The Assads, father and son, were very nasty people. But with them, we knew that a promise was a promise, and an agreement was solid as the boulders of Mount Hermon.”

As the Syrian civil war continues into its 23rd month, Israel is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to 10 miles inside Syria to secure the 47-mile border against the threat of Islamic radicals in the area.

The "engine plug" is an interesting idea. Modular weapon systems (Mark 84 bomb plus kit of choice) have many advantages including easy maintenance and upgrade. If an anti-radiation guidance kit could be added to a powered JDAM it could make a great air defense suppression weapon.

The "engine plug" is an interesting idea. Modular weapon systems (Mark 84 bomb plus kit of choice) have many advantages including easy maintenance and upgrade. If an anti-radiation guidance kit could be added to a powered JDAM it could make a great air defense suppression weapon.

An F-16 can normally carry four JDAM per sortie.

Israel already has a native solution that is more advanced than a vanilla JDAM called "SPICE", or "Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective".

Quote:

The guidance kit has become more lethal and can now be used in a “variety” of attack techniques to achieve maximum impact in a short time. The locally produced Spice is now one of the “main systems” in the Inventory of the IAF, along with GPS-guided JDAM and laser guided bombs imported from the US. The kit has also been exported to a number of airforces that are using it on some of their bombs.

Spice has been adapted to a number of standard warheads, from Mk-84/BLU-109 (900 kg, 2000 lbs), Mk-83/BLU-110 (450 kg, 1000 lbs) general purpose bombs. The weapon has recently been adapted now to 113 kg (250 lbs) pound small smart bombs (SSB) that are increasingly preferred by airforces due to their lower collateral damage.

The kit uses an imaging seeker for navigation and terminal homing. The system uses image matching techniques giving the weapon a Circular Error Probability (CEP) of less than three meters. Spice can be loaded with 100 optional targets in a given area. In addition to the passive image-based navigation the kit also includes Global Positioning Satellite / Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) navigation for reference and backup. But the main sensor of the Spice is the CCD/IIR dual seeker that provides pinpoint accuracy and positive target identification and according to Rafael , overcomes target location error and GPS jamming. The Kit’s automatic target acquisition capability is based on a unique scene-matching technology that can handle scenery changes, counter-measures, navigation errors and target location errors. The technology is based on the continuous comparison of a real-time image received from the dual CCD/IIR seeker with a reference image stored in the weapon’s computer.

The basic kit includes a strap-on forward guidance section and fixed, stubby wings and tail fins aft of the main charge, heaviest Spice uses the MK-84 (2000 pounds) general purpose bomb, with a flatter trajectory the Spice kit extends the weapon’s range beyond 60 km. This version is operational in the israeli airforce and was used in combat. Another kit has been adapted to Mk-83 (1000 pounds) bombs, featuring a wing-set that further extends the weapon range beyond 100 km. The Spice’s deployable wings allow an aircraft to carry more bombs. The latest addition of the SSB type weapon enables a single F-16 to carry up to 16 small smart bombs.

It's seems pretty surprising there's been basically no response from Syria. Not even a token one.

I'm putting money on them perhaps launching a missile or two towards areas protected by Iron Dome, that way they can calm down the homefront saying that they launch retaliatory strike without causing damage that would invite massive Israeli retaliation.

Israel not claiming to be behind the strike is also a huge blessing for both Syria and Hezbollah as it saves them face, otherwise they would be pressured to act to their own detriment.

Right, this shit smells so let's wade into it with a stick, or this fire is burning let's pour more fuel...

Really wise move there. Israel never learns.

Let's not forget who started this whole recent round of violence. Syria violated the demilitarized zone, bombarded the Israeli Golan and shot at IDF patrols before any Israeli strike happened. This is not including shipping weapons to a terrorist proxy [Hezbollah] to use in attacks on Israel.

I know it's hard to come to terms with, but Israel is fully and unquestionably in the right on this one.

Nice cheap shot there with "these people"*, but America's diplomatic, financial and military support of Israel is as well documented as the incompetence of the regimes around Israel. It's a non-sequitur anyway as this doesn't prove or disprove nothing.

The point being is not whether Syria overstepped first. Nobody disputes that Assad is an incompetent twat and so his regime. Does anyone in the Israeli goverment believe they are making things better by getting into this mess? does anyone here genuinly believe that targetting spots in Damascus (I'll grant you targetting shipments in transit) is going to help anyone at all?

All this is going to do is to weaken the opposition's hand and provide further support for Assad, prolonging his rule and Israel's headache in containing his support for Hizbollah. The sooner Assad goes the worse off Hizbolla and Iran are and this bombing of Damascus is not helping at all.

Nice cheap shot there with "these people"*, but America's diplomatic, financial and military support is well documented support of Israel is the well documented as the incompetence of the regimes around Israel.

The point being is not whether Syria overstepped first. Nobody disputes that Assad is an incompetent twat and so his regime. Does anyone in the Israeli goverment believe they are making things better by getting into this mess? does anyone here genuinly believe that targetting spots in Damascus (I'll grant you targetting shipments in transit) is going to help anyone at all?

All this is going to do is to weaken the opposition's hand and provide further support for Assad, prolonging his rule and Israel's headache in containing his support for Hizbollah. The sooner Assad goes the worse off Hizbolla and Iran are and this bombing of Damascus is not helping at all.

So having strategic weapons in the hands of non-state actors and terrorists, such as Hezbollah, is preferable?

These strikes seem to share one common line so far, weapons transfers to Hezbollah. Notice that the rest of the Syrian military arsenal was left alone, only the rocket stockpile in Qasioun was targeted.

Quick write up:

Quote:

Iran, that for years have used Syria as a protecting staging area supporting its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah is realizing it is time to liquidate its investments, and seek a safer home for its assets – in Lebanon. The missile storage at Mt. Qasioun was one of their storage sites. On this mountain, overlooking the capital Damascus, protected by the close proximity of the Syrian presidential palace and military installations, Iran stored ballistic missiles and ammunition it planned to ship to Hezbollah in a time of war.

"Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.

If so, the responsible parties must be found, and dragged before the ICC as war criminals. Same as if it were the regime.

But this does not change the fact that a hundred people die every day, most of them civilians, the vast majority from conventional weapons, and the majority from the Assad regime's indiscriminate use of violence against the civilian population. That must be stopped, whether or not Obama made an amateur mistake in setting down red lines.

It also makes the Obama adminstration's openly-floated idea of arming the rebels more problematic, given the West's tendency to see the opposition as a unified block. Doing so risks less for the US, but clearly illustrates that Obama's priority is not the lives of ordinary Syrians. If it were, we'd have helped Turkey and Jordan set up humanitarian corridors over a year ago.

One administration official acknowledged late last week that the [credibility] critique had “begun to sting,” and that Mr. Obama realized that merely accelerating nonlethal and even lethal aid to the opposition was not likely to be enough.

If anyone doubted the utterly self-serving focus of Obama's Syria policy. He desperately wants to wash his hands of the Middle East. It's really too bad about the whole "reality" thing.

--

In other news, this story from the Telegraph details an apparent chlorine attack in Khan al-Assal by anti-Asssad jihadists. It's unclear how this relates, if at all, to the above article about the UN investigation. The article mentions similarities to chlorine attacks by insurgents in Iraq, however, I don't recall any delivered by rocket.